I am hoping that it is simply pre-upgraded (either 1/2 or 2/2) items. Seems to be the most logical, as it would simply be a head start for 25mans, not an entire leg-up over 10s. 10man would still be able to get to the gear level of 25, and in the end everyone would be on an equal playing field.

That said, that idea makes far too much sense and is too balanced and fair to be considered controversial OR to be implemented by Blizz (given their current track record). Adding in extra loot drops would be pointless, as 25s are already swimming in loot for the most part. Less personal accountability via slacker tuned encounters would really water down 25mans, though we do have to carry a lot more slack to begin with. Unless it's something else out of left field, I'm not sure what they could change...

Personally, I'd also be on board for the one-size 15man train. 10man roster just isn't big enough to get the "community" feel that a 25 group has, but it is certainly far easier to field 15 good players than 25. It would also allow for better raid development (as stated prior) and better tuning of encoutners, I would believe. As a lover of 40mans in Vanilla, I was sad to see the "small" 25man raids at first, but the game has moved in that direction, and I feel that 15 would really be a sweet spot going forward. Add that to the list of "Things that should happen that won't"...

I see all of this 15 man banter, if this happens, I called this in TBC. It's taken a few years, but honestly, all I can say is LMAO.

It's not going to be anything related to the relative power of gear or ease of encounters; they've already stated they have no intention of bringing any of the ilvl or lockout changes made on Asian realms to the US or EU. "Controversial" =/= ruining one raid size. Blizzard also seems adamant on not allowing anyone to acquire lesser charms without going out into the world, so I doubt that will be it either. They've explicitly stated that one of the biggest detriments to 25m raiding is on the organizational level, so I'm willing to bet that the change will be one that eases the logistics of getting 25 people together and ready to raid. I'm guessing the change will probably relate to raid consumables in some way; consumable buffs lasting for longer durations in 25m raids or maybe being applied innately by being in the raid (unlikely, but whatever). The cost of keeping 25 people buffed and supplied is staggering for a 25m raid, but any change would have to be careful not to disrupt realm economies.

I'm fairly certain the change will directly affect qol for 25m guilds, but the question is how to implement such changes. If we're going to get more speculative, my vote would go to bosses killed in a 25m setting giving guild experience that would go towards a couple extra guild levels. Of course the only way to get these additional levels would be through killing 25m bosses, and the guild perk rewards would be aimed exclusively at easing 25m logistical woes. Things like the reintroduction of "Have Group, Will Travel", raid cauldron recipes, an extra rank of "Cashflow", extra buff durations in raids, or increased gold from boss kills could both incentivize 25m raiding and ease the cost of raiding 25's without slighting 10m's heavily. Of course people will complain even if the change is revealed to be as trivial as, "25m's get 5 extra vp per boss," but I think this would end up relatively harmless in the long run since the perks are neither gamebreaking nor unavailable to a 10m guild if they can field the extra players during farm.

It's all about striking a balance between granting meaningful incentives and not making one raid size obsolete, and say what you will about Blizzard's decisions, but they tread the line pretty well. I honestly don't feel 25m needs any further incentives and having begun the tier in 10m and cleared it on heroic in 25m, I don't feel that either size has an appreciable difficulty disparity compared to say t11. 10m's will always be a more tight-knit group of players who enjoy the camaraderie, and 25's will continue to be for players who want to have the true "raid" experience. The whole, "my raid is harder than your raid," mentality is getting pretty trite and people need to just play in the format they enjoy most. Without any Blizzard influence things will eventually reach an equilibrium of 10m:25m guilds that will reflect the percentages of the playerbase which prefer each size, and some people seem to take extreme issue with that when it's just a natural course of events. Aiding 25m leadership by offering them reduced cost for raid consumables reduces the threat of startup cost preventing a guild from raiding 25's if that's what they want to do, but aside from that things should just be left alone. No incentive Blizz introduces will prevent players from moving on or quitting the game or transitioning to the raid size they prefer, and those are the true reasons why 25's are on the decline.

I dont see it as controversial having 25m buffs from flasks/feast last longer then 10m; have it last 10x as long or whatever. Doesn't really matter.

The cost of outfitting a 25m should be greater then the cost of outfitting a 10m. But per person in the raid it would probably be about the same, also the 25m is already getting more gold via the cashflow perk, even tho they also cost more if you allow gbank repairs etc. So just perking it up gold wise probably wont do much in the end, plus it's gold -- that just aint controversial enough I think for GC to postpone telling people until after the holidays.

If 25m would get "have group will travel" back that would massivly piss me, as a 10m, person of tho. Also it might be exploitable as in a few 10:ers go togehter and clear some normals for a few weeks to get it and then we go our merry seperate ways again.

hesp while your ideas are decent.. i just dont see them as incentive to get people back into 25 man raiding. since the majority of realms are now 10 man raiding with just a few 25 guilds left.. i dont see them giving 25 mans better ilvls. i think you would see more people quit the game/raiding than having to rejoin new 25 man guilds.. sorry even with better ilvls .. just not worth the hassle.

the heart of the problem is the difficulty curve. new players have a huge cliff to climb to be competitive against long term players. sure their will always be some that can do it.. but the vast majority cant. take everything you know about using DBM, websites like mmo champion, icy-veins and elitist jerks.. remove any knowledge of reforging or even which stats are best and thats your average raider.. want to know why.. because until exposed to these things by other more knowledgeable raiders.. they have no idea they exist because its all OUT OF GAME information.

everyone says wow's not hard.. yea right.. try it without your addons and knowledge that youve gained over the last 8 years... hence.. you have all those 25 mans that dropped people .. just so they could take a core to 10 mans...(cause they couldnt fill thier rosters with quality players)

they should have just changed it to 15 man at the start of the xpac, and all the pissing and moaning from everyone would have died down by now and we'd all be doing our 15man raids while some quietly complain

On paper, the idea of dropping 1/2 or 2/2 upgraded items seems like a good idea. But it would create all sorts of balancing problems. How do you tune fights?

Obviously you would tune fights in 10 man towards 0/2 upgraded items. But how do you tune 25s? There are a few possibilities:

1) Tune them for 0/2 upgrades. If the boss then drops 1/2 or 2/2 upgraded items, 25 man becomes *significantly* easier than 10 man. Probably ruins 25 man progression.
2) Tune them for 1/2 or 2/2 upgrades (whichever the boss drops). 25s and 10s have the same relative difficulty in their own difficulty, but 25s can easily drop to 10 and farm 10 man heroic kills in their 0/2-tuned fights with their 1/2 or 2/2 tuned gear. Whereas 10 mans will have trouble if they ever want to run a farm 25 one week, because all the fights are tuned for higher ilvls than they have. Ruins 10 man progression
3) Tune them for 1/2 upgrades but the boss drops 2/2 upgrades. Same problems as 1.

I think the "controversial" solution would involve the following steps:

Why this works: 25 man raiders suggest that the reason they raid 25 mans is because they like the epic feeling of 25 people downing a boss. Still achievable, and in the same gear as everyone, full BiS. If they are being truthful, and aren't in 25s solely because it's mindless on their part and they can be the tunneling DPS they've always wanted to be, the fact that 25 H Sha of Anger is easier than 10 H Sha of Anger shouldn't bother them, because it should 1) still be hard-ish, and 2) still be epic. Let's be honest, no serious 10 or 25 progression raider thinks progression raiding is "hard", it just involves a lot of head-bashing and practice. In this model, 25s would just have less of that. This model also puts to rest the whole argument about the "legitimacy of 10 man heroic raiding." A problem it exacerbates is farming 25 mans to feed a 10 man - but that problem exists now, and I don't think there's any feasible way to do it except to legitimize the 25 as actual farm mode for serious 10s.

Heroic 10 mans then become balls hard. The 10 man raiders who are looking for legitimacy rejoice. The 10 heroic man raiders who are in it because they think it's easier (lol) join a 25 man. The 10 man heroic raiders who can't raid 25 mans because of their computer - well, they're screwed if they don't want the harder content. Someone has to be screwed. The 25 man players who enjoy a challenge then go to 10s for their challenge and prestige, and don't have to carry around dead weight. The 25 man raiders who are dead weight continue to be dead weight and get their shiny purple epics.

The 25 man raiders who enjoy the challenge specific to 25 mans...well, these are an odd breed. As someone who has gone from 25 man progression to 10 heroic progression and back to 25 man heroic progression, I'd say the people who like the challenge of carrying dead weight (as opposed to the challenge of actually doing the boss's mechanics) are masochists and gamblers. The only (general) mechanic which is harder on 25 man is spreading out to not chain something - which is a trivial mechanic for "good" raiders who are constantly aware of their surroundings and not tunneling like a retard. The space issue is only an issue for bad 25 mans.

IDK, it's a rough sketch, but I'd say it's possibly the only workable solution, and is plenty controversial.

Okay, how about this: Since the 25 difficulty is above all related to logistics, and especially the necessity to call off a raid when not enough people are online, here are two controversial ideas

1) If there are more than 20 people in the raid (i.e. 21 to 24), the damage and healing (or possibly the ilvl, this needs to be simmed out precisely) is scaled up proportionally (i.e. by 25/21, 25/22 and so on). This way, you still can't raid. Sure you still can be screwed if you have say only 2 healers online that evening, but it's better than nothing.

2) The possibility to split an already started 25 man instance into two 10 man IDs and be able to merge them during the week (possibly only once). Obviously, if there is one ID at 3/6 and other at 5/6, the new re-merged 25-man ID would be at 5/6 to prevent double looting on bosses.

This would alleviate one of the biggest logistical headaches in 25-man.

1. Only have one singular size option, whether that be always 10, always 25, always 40, or any other number doesn't matter to me.

2. Return to the Classic/TBC style in which each individual raid has its own scaling and its own number of players. (Classic had many 40man raids, 20man AQ ruins, 20man ZG, 10man UBRS, TBC had Karazhan and ZA for 10 people, everything else was 25 people)

Option 2 could be worked very cleverly in a large variety of ways. It would also be very controversial as the post implies. Please note that it doesn't necessarily mean that all raids would still be 10 or 25, I think it would be much better to have a 10 or 20 format so a fully functioning guild would have a single group for when they're doing a 20man raid and could be split into two for when they're doing progress in a 10man raid.

That is what hopped on my mind like a controversal idea..about getting a cross realm ppl for 25-s... but then it wont be guild achivment .. you kniow.. Upgrades of items in 25's , remove 10's or 25's... whatsoever doesnt fix the problem...
The problem is getting the rooster... ya you give me charm ot whatever... yes but i cant roll it since i cant go to raid since i dont have the necessary ppl to do that.. you know.

so they focked it up.... they will have to fix it... Which i highly doubt they will.... i think they will fock something again..

That person doesn't deserve any more reward than the other 24 people. They put just as much effort into the kill, if not more.

But they did put in far more effort to make sure the raid happened at all, more so than even 10-man raid leaders. Even Blizzard has acknowledged that.

All this complaining is simply further proof that Blizzard could send each and every player a real-life wish-granting flying unicorn carrying a solid gold plate of chocolate chip cookies wrapped in hundred dollar bills, and someone would whine that Blizzard sucks for not letting them choose oatmeal raisin.

Originally Posted by DeadmanWalking

If your guild demands you slip into an elephants butt and force yourself out in a regurgation then you can't blame Blizzard for supplying the elephant.

That is what hopped on my mind like a controversal idea..about getting a cross realm ppl for 25-s... but then it wont be guild achivment .. you kniow.. Upgrades of items in 25's , remove 10's or 25's... whatsoever doesnt fix the problem...
The problem is getting the rooster... ya you give me charm ot whatever... yes but i cant roll it since i cant go to raid since i dont have the necessary ppl to do that.. you know.

so they focked it up.... they will have to fix it... Which i highly doubt they will.... i think they will fock something again..

They should just abandon the concept of realms and make it one regionwide CRZ cluster, guilds and AH should become crossrealm as well.
It would solve the 25man shortage, dead realms and ah under/overpricing issues all at once.

---------- Post added 2013-01-02 at 08:51 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Gurbz

But they did put in far more effort to make sure the raid happened at all, more so than even 10-man raid leaders. Even Blizzard has acknowledged that.

I also prefer a more tight knit group, and i dont like carrying those few people who evidently are bad just to fill a 25man raid.

Your saying your one of the bad 15 that would be carried in a 25 man because your computer wont handle it then? Dont see how you can be one of the top 10 in a 25 man guild when your computer cant handle it.

how is making the harder format 'casual mode' in any way helpful? 25s are always going to be harder from a sheer logistical standpoint ( that includes nerd wrangling, spacial requirements, add micro managment, damage requirements)

25s are dying because 25s raiders are not rewarded nearly enough for their hard work compared to the 10 man raiders.

Um...someone has to put the damn thing together or it doesn't happen at all. I am fairly certain this is the number one reason why participation in 25s dropped off as much as it did. To the majority of the participants in the raid, there is little or no difference. For the person responsible for making the raid happen in the first place, it is much more difficult logistically, primarily because you are having to organize 15 more people. For no benefit, either to themselves or the other people participating. More work+same reward=Why would anyone do that? Note that I am only talking about making the raid happen. Encounter balance between the formats is a separate issue and discussion.

Consequently, it becomes harder and harder for the people that prefer the larger raid format (but don't necessarily want, or have the skill set, to run the raid themselves) to find a 25-man raid to join. Lacking options, they move to 10-mans as the only alternative.

Last edited by Gurbz; 2013-01-02 at 08:11 PM.

All this complaining is simply further proof that Blizzard could send each and every player a real-life wish-granting flying unicorn carrying a solid gold plate of chocolate chip cookies wrapped in hundred dollar bills, and someone would whine that Blizzard sucks for not letting them choose oatmeal raisin.

Originally Posted by DeadmanWalking

If your guild demands you slip into an elephants butt and force yourself out in a regurgation then you can't blame Blizzard for supplying the elephant.

how is making the harder format 'casual mode' in any way helpful? 25s are always going to be harder from a sheer logistical standpoint ( that includes nerd wrangling, spacial requirements, add micro managment, damage requirements)

25s are dying because 25s raiders are not rewarded nearly enough for their hard work compared to the 10 man raiders.

25 mans are dying because when they get to a boss thats difficult because a few players are screwing up instead of having to keep working on it to progress 10 of them can drop down to 10 mans and kill the boss and then why would they want to go back.